BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Indian Food Essential Indian Spices

I want to set up my kitchen to be able to make your delicious recipes. What do you consider to be the essential Indian spices?

What a great question!! Hmm.... turmeric, black mustard seeds, ground coriander powder, garam masala & cumin seeds (you can grind your own cumin powder). These are really it, if you love spicy hot food then cayenne pepper or red chili powder :-)

If you bake a lot, you probably already have ground cinnamon & ground clove. If you like India desserts, you should buy green cardamom pods (you can grind your own cardamom powder).

You may also already have bay leaves, black peppercorns, dried red chilies, whole cloves....

Hope this helps!

Yes, this helps tremendously!

Do you use a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle?

It all depends really, for fine powders (& laziness) -- I use a spice grinder. For a coarser grind, I use the m&p (but you can use a spice grinder & pulse it a few times for a coarse grind too).

Is there a difference between cumin powder from the Mexican market versus the Indian store?

I picked up all of those spices you suggested and even a bag of bay leaves and some fenugreek powder. Forgot the black mustard seeds. ugh.

Still need the cheesecloth and mortar and pestle.

I hoped to buy some chutney but while they had a few varieties of chutney, the bottles were so small that I thought I'd just make my own. Can you shed some light on the different types of chutneys and sauces?

Also, there were lots of packaged snacks (sev type) and I wonder if you ever buy packaged products and if so, what brands do you prefer?